Judge Daniel Burkeen: Texans Of Every Species Can Crap In The Woods

​On March 9, the Texas Council of Environmental Quality received a complaint about David Cousins, a resident of Limestone County in rural Central Texas.

Cousins, it was alleged, did not provide restroom facilities in the cabin on his wooded deer lease. Instead, he allowed, one might even say encouraged, hunters to crap in the woods.

On March 16, TCEQ assigned the complaint to Limestone County Judge Daniel Burkeen, who treated the matter with all the gravity it deserved.

"We have had some delay in our investigation of the incidents alleged in the complaint which you kindly forwarded to us," Judge Burkeen wrote in the following report to TCEQ. "The problem is, we have recently had a rash of reports of cows, horses, sheep and goats defecating at will in pastures throughout the county.

"In addition," Burkeen continued...

..."I have personal proof on my windshield of a mischievous bird defecating in flight. The culprit flew away, but I did get a description. It was red. The gift it left was white."

"In order to complete our investigation, I must ask, we should inquire into urination, or only defecation?" he continued, and added that since hunters "have long been suspected of taking a good amount of liquid refreshments with them into the woods," that it would perhaps be a good idea if the possibility of urination were investigated as well.

The Groesbeck jurist went on to ask if the samples his office collected as evidence be sent to the Waco TCEQ field office or directly to Austin, and closed by hoping that the matter would not attract the attention of the Feds.

"When it comes to matters of excessive defecation, Washington bureaucrats would only add to our misery," he wrote.

(In case you were wondering, there is now a toilet on the deer lease in question.)